Private owners won’t part with their land

The proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport continues to face opposition from private owners, who would part with their land for the project only after the government gives them incentive compensation.

The government is yet to decide on the package to be offered to project-affected people.

The City and industrial development corporation (Cidco), the planning and development authority for the airport, urged chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday to hasten the decision. Chavan has assured the authority of a final decision soon.

The airport, to be built in Panvel, is aimed at easing the growing air traffic handled by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

Cidco plans to invest more than Rs10,000 crore in this project. According to Cidco’s status report presented to Chavan, the yet-to-be acquired 291 hectares of private land is crucial as it is part of the main airport facility.

Cidco’s managing director, Tanaji Satre, said that acquiring the 291 hectares as early as possible was important. “In addition to the 12.5% of developed land, the people want more as compensation. We urged the CM to fast-track the decision.”

The project monitoring committee had last year cleared the proposal for issuing request for quotation (RFQ) to invite quotations from prospective developers.

“We cannot issue RFQ without acquiring all the private land. We have completed all other requisite formalities required at this stage,” said Satre. As per official information, the RFQ was to be issued in January 2012 and the private developer to be finalised by June 2012.

In all, 485 hectares of private land need to be acquired for the airport. Of the 2,072 hectares of airport land – including private and government -- 1,160 hectares are required for the airport facility including runways and terminus buildings.

Satre said Cidco is in possession of 1,575 hectares of land as on Friday. The procedure of acquiring private land was started in September 2011.

Seven villages (5,000 families with 25,000 people) will be given alternative accommodation at Dapoli, Wadgaon and Wahal villages.